Does Your Professional Services Website Need a Refresh? Here’s a Template to Get You Started.

Websites for professional services firms are different than those in ecommerce or retail. Your website is more like a suit than a factory. You need to look up-to-date, professional and confident.

Don’t worry about making your website refresh more complicated than necessary. Most visitors will have heard about you via a referral. They want to feel you can get the job done and are easy to work with. Rattleback distills what you need into the three P’s:

Perspective: Does this firm have the expertise I need?

People: Do they look like people we could work with or would be interested in working with?

Past Experience: Do they have demonstrable experience solving problems similar in nature to mine?

There are many options regarding DIY website templates or you can hire a great designer. Use the following template to ensure your website “suit” fits and looks sharp:

Headline/Hero Image: You need an image and/or text that quickly communicates what your firm is all about. List images, phrases or your tagline.

Websites you like: List websites from competitors or other professional services firms that you like. Go through them from the perspective of a prospective client – what did you like? what was missing?

Navigation: At the very least, you need the following sections:

About Us: List your firm’s philosophy. What are you proud of? How do you conduct your engagements?

Team: Use professional headshots that reflect your culture. Ensure that bios communicate relevant experience (just list past work, education that are markers of expertise for your area). But also add flavor that shows the personality of each person – that reflects “easy to work with”.

Services: What services do you offer? Make it as clear as possible and use the language that your clients use to describe what you do for them. Do you have minimum engagements or a process? Do you want to signal a price range to screen out the wrong type of client?

Clients: Here you want to highlight how you got the job done for others. Include quotes from past clients and industry tags. Focus on outcomes. Case studies done well present 1) the impact of your work and 2) the experience or the way if felt for the client (relieving stress, uncertainty, etc.).

Blog/Articles: Your blog should demonstrate your expertise and thought leadership. Here you can build trust and go into more detail on how you approach different problems. Organize the content into categories that align with your services.

Contact Us: Make it quick and easy to contact you. After all, this is the real purpose of the site.

About the Author(s)

Jeanne uses her 20 years of marketing know-how to help small business owners reach their goals. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she held a variety of marketing positions with DuPont and General Electric. Jeanne regularly hosts online webinars and workshops in both English and Spanish.